


The Night Looks Darker Now

by SarIIon



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (in that order) - Freeform, Apathy, Blood and Gore, Bullying, Complete, Despair, F/M, First Aid, Fluff and Angst, Forehead Touching, M/M, Murder, Pre-Game Akamatsu Kaede, Pre-Game Oma Kokichi, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Pre-Game Saihara Shuichi, The omasai is only mentioned and SUPER unhealthy, This ain't happy, Wakes & Funerals, so don't read for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 19:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19410316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarIIon/pseuds/SarIIon
Summary: Despite everything, Kaede’s always searched for a light. Too late, she realizes that finding one is crueler than living in the darkness.





	The Night Looks Darker Now

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: If you are sensitive to gore, death, self harm, apathy, or depressing world views, please do not read this.

“Kokichi hold still okay? This might sting a little bit.” Ripping open the wrapper of an alcohol wipe with her teeth, Kaede efficiently sanitized the shorter boy’s wounds, wiping blood off of the scrapes on his knees and elbows with a practiced hand.

“Ah!” He instantly hissed in pain, shoulders tensing as the disinfectant stung his skin.

She would’ve attempted to comfort him in some way, but treating his wounds was more important, so she focused on the task at hand, ignoring his pained whimpers the best she could while pressing sterile gauze firmly over oozing red abrasions. Applying pressure instigated another yelp, but it was important to stop the bleeding as soon as possible, so she didn’t pull back.

First aid was finished with the application of one last wrapping of roller bandages to secure everything in place, and only then did she allow herself to relax, sitting back against the brick wall next to Kokichi as she shoved bandage wrappers into the pocket of her skirt to throw away later.

“T-Thanks Kaede.”

“No problem.” She didn’t have to ask what happened. She knew what happened. It was the same thing that happened almost every day. Upperclassmen would pick on him and tease him and push him around in an effort to get the shy boy to snap. He never did though. And apparently getting no reaction was boring, so they usually resorted to pushing him down the stairs for some form of amusement before stalking off…Only to repeat the cycle the next day. She didn’t ask if he was okay. He wasn’t okay. He looked tired…just so tired of everything.

Thin shoulders drooped with fatigue as he stared into the bright sky. The dark coloration of his long, greasy hair, school uniform and large eyes sharply contrasted pale skin making him almost look ghostly white.

Seeing him so worn out almost made her wish she could help him with his bullies in some way. But life wasn’t some hero story, some anime, some fairy tale…it was never as simple as giving a heartfelt speech and changing bad guys into good guys. In fact…speaking out for him would probably only make the situation worse considering the particular group of upperclassmen in question were popular football players.

Popular cliques like that were pathetic. They always needed to choose a scapegoat to make fun of in order to make themselves feel better. Pitiful. Disgusting. And yet, those kinds of students were the ones who teachers and administrators favored. Not students who actually worked hard in class and got good grades and challenged themselves academically. For every single sports tournament, a morning announcement blared over the speakers in an urgent reminder to go and cheer on the school team (who hadn’t won a single game all year), but whenever anything remotely academic was happening, the loudspeakers were instantly silent.

Raising the next generation of bright young minds? What a joke.

Chuckling softly, she turned her attention to the wispy sky as well. The roof of the school building was off limits to students but that didn’t stop them from sneaking up here to meet nearly every day. The lock was simple enough to disable after she stole a key off the table in the faculty lounge, and no teachers checked up here anyways, so it was safe enough.

Kokichi leaned tiredly into her shoulder as half lidded eyes struggled to remain open, and she let him lay there even though it was a bit uncomfortable with his chin digging sharply into her shoulder. It didn’t take long at all for him to fall asleep, and even when the bell rang signaling the end of lunch, she didn’t rouse him. Class was pretty much pointless anyways; he needed sleep a lot more.

Undoing the knotted ribbon of her school uniform tie, she brought the end to her mouth, wetting the tip before using it as a makeshift handkerchief to wipe away dry tear trails on his cheeks.

“W-Wh…Kaede…?”

_Ah…He always had been a light sleeper…_

“It’s fine, go back to sleep.”

“What time is it?”

“I dunno, 1:30 or something?”

“W-What?! We’re gonna be so late for class! Come on, we have to go!” He shot to his feet and instantly winced, almost toppling over as pain clawed at his legs.

“Nope. We’re not going back to class.” Standing up as well, she shoved the damp ribbon into her pocket before stepping forward and gently catching him by the shoulders to meet his gaze.

“W…Why not?” He instantly broke eye contact, dropping his attention to the ground.

“Because you’re hurt…dummy.”

“I-I’m fine…D-don’t worry about me.”

“How can I not worry about you when your ankle’s swollen about the size of a grapefruit?”

“I-It’ll be fine…”

“Oh?” Raising an eyebrow, she stepped back and motioned toward the rooftop door. “Then walking to that door will be no problem.”

“Y-yeah!” Kokichi made it about two feet before nearly falling over as his knees wobbled under him. Smirking with victory, Kaede closed the distance between the two of them in a few short strides to support his shoulders again.

“You suck at lying. Come on, we’re going home. You need rest.”

“I-I probably just fell on it funny…I-I can’t miss math today Kaede…W-we’re learning a new concept a-and—”

“What is it?”

“U-Uh…I think it’s integration by parts…?”

“Ehh…Fine, let’s go home, and I’ll teach it to you.”

“…I…I don’t know if that’s a good idea…”

“It’s easy, I promise. I skipped the whole unit last year, and it only took a 2 hour cram session to learn everything.”

“I-I…Okay.”

She offered him her arm, and his fingers were so cold when he clutched onto it that she could feel the chill through cloth. The walk downstairs and to the front gate was excruciatingly slow with Kokichi wincing at every step, and by the time they finally stepped off school property her patience had worn away. Without a word of warning, she bent down, scooping Kokichi up in her arms before setting off on a brisk stride down the street.

“Wh-What? Kaede?!”

“Since you can’t walk, let’s go to my house, it’s closer.” Although she was far from strong by any means, Kokichi was so thin that he basically weighed nothing in her arms. “Don’t wiggle around or I might accidentally drop you.”

“I-I…t-this is a b-bridal carry!”

“I don’t have any other choice okay? To give you a piggyback ride I’d have to hold onto your ankles…That left one looks really sprained by the way…”

“I-It’s probably fine…” His voice trailed off as he buried his flushed face into her shoulder, trying not to look at any passersby’s and die of embarrassment.

~.o.~

“Kokichi?” Gently she shook the small boy awake, pointing to the darkening sky outside in response to his unspoken, drowsy question. “It’s getting dark out.”

“Ah! I should get going! T-Thanks for teaching me the concept!”

“Sure thing. I’ll bring you home.” Sliding on a hoodie against the night chill, she followed him down the steps of her apartment building. Although his ankle was a lot less swollen now due to a combination of ice and pressure (and she was sure it wasn’t actually sprained), it was still a long way to his apartment by foot. “Hop on my bike, it’ll be faster.”

Maybe it was because his eyes were struggling to remain open, but he didn’t protest as she started up the motorcycle, opting instead to cling onto Kaede’s waist as if his life depended on it.

“Hehe…Don’t worry, as long as you hold onto me, you won’t fall off.”

He nodded slightly into her shoulder, only somewhat releasing the tension in his grip when she pulled out of the alleyway, turning onto a deserted side street of the neighborhood. There wasn’t really any reason to hurry, so she drove slowly, quietly cruising through the dusky night air at a leisurely pace. They didn’t speak for the rest of the drive, letting a comfortable silence fall between them as intermittent cricket chirps filled the peaceful night.

“Kaede…Do you ever get the weird feeling that someone’s watching you?”

“Not really…Why?”

“It’s nothing…I must be imagining things…”

“Okay. If anything happens, tell me Kokichi. I’ll be there for you.” As they stepped onto the second floor and he opened his door after a bit of fiddling with the key, she met his eyes with an encouraging smile. “Only one more day, then it’s the weekend.”

“Yeah…I’ll make it. Thanks for patching me up again…”

“No problem.” Leaning down to brush hair out of his eyes, she gently pressed their foreheads together in a smooth motion. Squeaking in surprise as their noses brushed against one another, Kokichi pulled back before giving her a flustered hug around the waist and darting into his apartment.

“I-I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Goodnight Kokichi.” A gentle hint of some soft melody played in her head as she descended the stairs, flipped up the kickstand of her motorcycle, and headed toward home. For the first time in months she felt an unexplainable urge to hum a quiet tune to herself as the cool night air rustled her hair. Kokichi really was like a light…A small, glowing lantern in an abyss of darkness.

Far above, in the dusky night sky, fluffy grey cumuli slid almost imperceptibly through the air. Sluggishly laden with unshed precipitation, the clouds seemed to absorb all noise and chaos from the bustling streets below, sending a strange calmness washing over the entire town.

Kokichi didn’t show up to school on Friday.

Frowning, Kaede glanced out the classroom window, distractedly watching rain pound against the glass as the sky above split to flood the world below.

_(Did you know? They say when it rains, it means the heavens are crying.)_

~.o.~

They found his mutilated corpse floating in the canal only three days later.

The dismembered limbs bobbing up and down around his body were bloated and swollen from soaking in the water for so long. Deep lacerations made with some jagged instrument akin to a bone saw covered his back in a line of ‘X’ markings. The coroner couldn’t exactly tell, but the wound pattern almost resembled the crossed laces of a corset. That note was added to the report along with 'extreme blunt trauma to internal organs,' 'dark, finger shaped bruises circling his neck,' and 'blunt hair ends on one side of his head where someone lopped off a handful of hair.'

Perhaps the most bizarre detail the autopsy revealed was the corpse’s lack of a heart. Beginning at the base of the throat and running a little off mid-line all the way down to the bottom of the pleural cavity was a deep, ragged cut which separated the sternum from all the ribs on the left side of his ribcage. Another incision—this one horizontal across the bottom of the diaphragm—was apparently all the killer needed to peel back the entire left section of Kokichi’s chest. The left lung had been punctured with some sharp object and now it soaked deflated in a pool of water and blood, revealing the sliced ends of major arteries and veins which typically connected to a heart. In this case, they connected to nothing. The dissection had been focused, for no other internal organs were missing. A detective on the case quickly scanned over the modus operandi of all known serial killers on file. Nothing matched.

Kaede wasn’t allowed to read the explicit details of the autopsy report, but she didn’t need to. The watered down description local news channels managed to get hold of flashed across headlines and radio waves for weeks on repeat.

Feeding off death and despair…Lunging at every tiny scrap of news…Batting around the same dead animal until it festered with maggots…

Vultures.

They were all vultures.

She hadn’t been to school for a month. The police were probably done investigating there anyways…The tension had probably already faded. The students had probably already moved on…topic shifting to more cheery topics such as upcoming football games and the school play.

One month.

Just one month was all it took for them to forget about him entirely.

It didn’t surprise her at all. High school was a shallow cesspool of waste. The rotting brains of the next generation swarmed with horseflies. She could almost envision the dark cloud as it descended upon the building with a merciless buzz. No amount of makeup and axe body spray could disguise the festering souls of superficial filth.

Crackling static of the television interrupted her thoughts.

“Police have come to a standstill on the murder of a young highschool boy in XXX prefecture.”

Them too, huh? Shoving his investigation onto the ‘cold case’ list in just a month?! She wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been paid off by some wealthy business owner’s sociopathic son.

“Despite their best efforts, investigative teams have come to a dead end—”

*CRASH*

The reporter’s voice garbled as Kaede smashed through the face of the television with a hammer. "Stop. Stop talking."

“L-L-Leads h-have aa…a-aalll…turrr-r-rned…”

"I said STOP!"

*CRUNCH*

She swung down again.

And again.

And again.

*CRACK*

The voice had cut out a long time ago, but she didn’t notice.

*BANG*

With every strike, jagged black shards of monitor flew up into the air, burying themselves in the carpet and walls.

*CCCRRCK*

Razor sharp fragments imbedded themselves in her arms and hands, tearing effortlessly through flesh as they sliced trails through her clothing.

*CLANG*

That was fine. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like she needed her hands for anything anyways.

*KKKSHHH*

She wanted to cry. To howl in agony. To bawl out of heartbreak. To scream and scream and scream her throat raw. That would be a normal reaction right? In this situation?

Opening her mouth, nothing came out.

There were no sobs, no shrieks, no tears.

No tears…

She couldn’t even manage a single one for him.

Letting the hammer slip out of her fingers and fall to the ground with a muffled thud, she stared down at the television’s crushed remnants without seeing them at all.

_Can’t…Can’t even feel sad…for him…_

She felt nothing but a dull, spreading numbness which started in her fingertips and slowly infected the rest of her body on its journey upwards. It wrapped cold, skeletal fingers around her heart, and she willed the organ to stop pumping. To paralyze. To turn to stone. To never beat again.

It didn’t.

Foolish. She’d been so foolish to search for a light in the inky swamp of the world. This…This was all her fault. Her fault for believing…believing there was some good in humanity after all…Her fault for searching so desperately for a light…Any light.

His smile…It had been so bright.

She couldn’t help it…In spite of everything, she’d reached out in some attempt to feel that warmth on her skin _. Protect that light_. The urgent thought felt almost like instinct. _Maybe this was her purpose…her reason…_ That was what she’d thought at the time. How foolish.

Dangling that miniature sun in front of her eyes before snatching it away…A lesson from the cold-hearted world to a member of the sinful race. Humanity deserved nothing but suffering and pain.

So she would live. Live to bear that anguish. Because death? Death was a reward reserved for the virtuous. The last reward for a flickering light of hope which burned out its short life span ever so valiantly. It was not for a creature of the night, blighted with sin and wickedness. Those festering beasts deserved only the hell of living.

Standing there in the darkening living room, Kaede stared into nothingness. Blood dribbling down her lacerated arms, joined trails of red from the wounds on her hands before collecting in small rivulets at the ends of her digits.

Crimson pearls fell from her fingertips, glistening in the lowlight before plunging down to create spreading flowers across the otherwise pale carpet.

Disgusting.

Humanity was disgusting.

~.o.~

His funeral wasn’t anything special: a simple burial without a viewing or even a ceremony. The priest spoke a few words, more out of obligation than anything else, as the urn was lowered into the ground.

After the men in suits picked up their shovels Kaede glanced over and noticed, for the first time, the crowds of students wearing fancy black mourning clothing as they split into small groups around the refreshments table. Gagging back bile, she rushed to the bathroom before throwing up, emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet as she retched.

They didn’t know him at all.

They didn’t care about him at all when he was alive.

They made his life a living hell.

And now?

Now that he was dead, he was some spectacle for social interaction?

…She was leaving. Fuck this.

Swiping a sleeve across her mouth, she strode out of the bathroom and toward his freshly covered grave. “I’m sorry Kokichi…I’m going home okay?”

The skies were clear and blue…Wispy white clouds floated gently through the air as they shifted…Bright sunlight burned into her scalp as it cheerily shone down on the cemetery. It was nice out…Why was it so nice out? It felt wrong. So…So wrong.

Kneeling down, she pressed her forehead to his gravestone, drowning out the nauseating laughter and light hearted chatter emanating from a group of girls nearby. The smooth marble was cold to the touch, and in it, she could almost imagine his thin, freezing fingers wrapping around her arm once more. Her lips brushed across the top of stone engravings in the softest suggestion of a kiss.

“Rest…Rest, Kokichi.”

Kaede didn’t look back as she exited the cemetery, closing the gate behind her, but if she had, perhaps she would’ve noticed a lanky boy standing beside the punch bowl, nursing his drink as golden eyes watched her every move. Sharp irises gleamed out from under the brim of his cap before he pulled it down further, covering everything but a wry, twisted smile.

_Don’t worry Kaede Akamatsu…You’ll meet again, I’m sure of it. But…Don’t get your hopes up, because even then…I won't let you have him._

_A beautiful, beautiful butterfly in this wasteland of darkness…Wings of snowdrops and eyes of stardust…Such pristine prey deserves only the vilest of hunters._

_So I devoured him…And I’ll do it again._

_I’ll never let you have him._

_He’s mine._

**Author's Note:**

> -AU Where: V3 is a digital program and the characters are all AI’s generated by Team Danganronpa. All participants need to do is fill out paperwork and submit an audition video…I’m sure a little ‘persuasion’ was all our detective needed to extract that from Kichi… Y’know what that means? Pregame versions don’t need to live…AhahahaAHAHA  
> \--Idk if Shuichi’s just delusional, or if he has some plan to upload his consciousness into the game. Oh hecc…Just imagine V3 where everyone else is the same, but Shu is Pre-game Shu…


End file.
